Make that a half for the ages.
Ole Miss erased a 17-point halftime deficit and scored a blistering 62 2nd-half points to stun BYU and advance into the 1st Round of the NCAA Tournament against Xavier on Thursday (3:10 p.m.).
It was absolutely, positively without a doubt the best half of basketball Ole Miss has ever played, and it followed one of the uglier halves the Rebels have ever played.
No team could have been any more shocked by the outcome than BYU. The Cougars couldn't miss in the 1st half. Leading 49-32 at halftime, it seemed BYU would coast to victory against what appeared to be an outmatched Ole Miss team that was continuing its end of season struggles shooting and appeared defenseless as the Cougars rained down 3-pointers.
This game appeared over at halftime or dang close to it.
Andy Kennedy's halftime speech! pic.twitter.com/SxiWHzHbJh
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) March 18, 2015
"At the halftime all we talked about was the battle. Let's battle. We're a good basketball team, if we weren't we wouldn't be here. Let's played like it," said head coach Andy Kennedy. "I just thought we were so tentative. BYU was in control of the tempo ... we wanted to try to impose our will to start the second half. We chopped (the lead) in half pretty quickly, our guys started believing, the ball starts going in, good things happen."
The halftime speech worked.
Stefan Moody found his stroke again and scored 26 points.
"We had a rough first half, but my coach told me not to give up on my shot," Moody told CBS in an on-court interview.
"We had a rough first half, but my coach told me not to give up on my shot," Moody told CBS in an on-court interview.
M.J. Rhett dunked so many times his wrists probably need first aid on his way to an impressive 20 points.
The Rebels hustled. They contested shots. Made steals. Deflected passes. Dove for loose balls. They literally left everything on the floor. And they scored. Boy, did the Rebels score....
Ole Miss scored 50 points in the last 14:07 of its win vs BYU
That's a rate of 141.7 points per 40 minutes
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) March 18, 2015
LaDarius White: “We didn’t want to lose. That’s it. We didn’t want to get embarrassed.”
— Ben Garrett (@SpiritBen) March 18, 2015
Ole Miss' 62 second-half points are the most by any team since 2007.
— Ryan Krasnoo (@RyanKras) March 18, 2015
It was possibly the most dramatic Ole Miss comeback ever, and it was awesome!
“That was gratifying,” Kennedy said. “Certainly gratifying for a team group that nobody thought would be in this tournament. When the magazines came out in September, October, nobody had the Rebels pegged as an NCAA tournament team. Not one -- because I used that as motivation.
“Not one person believed this team could be here. Then many believed, ‘OK, they’re there, do they deserve it?’ I think we proved it.”